NSAC's Blog

Today, Food Policy Action (FPA) released its 2016 National Food Policy Scorecard (“Scorecard”), a unique and interactive tool to help the public understand how Congress members have performed (or underperformed) on food-related policy issues. FPA is a non-profit organization headed by co-founders Ken Cook (also of the Environmental Working Group) and Chef Tom Colicchio, which endeavors to educate the public on how their Congress members are working towards or against achieving good food policy.

FPA uses their Scorecard to translate congressional stances and policy actions into a single, tangible number. Each Senator and Representative’s “score” is represented as a number between 0 and 100.

FPA’s Scorecard highlights issues of food and agricultural policy for the public by shining a spotlight on those FPA deems as congressional food policy champions, as well as Senators and Representatives who FPA considers to be failing to adequately address current food and agriculture challenges. FPA scores Congress members across a range of food-related legislation, covering issues including but not limited to: animal welfare; nutrition programs including farm-to-school and SNAP; farm labor; organic farming; and environmentally sound farm production. The major focus this year seems to be placed on child nutritional programs, which makes sense given that the last Child Nutrition Act reauthorization (CNR) expired in September 2016 and has yet to be reauthorized.

Some of the most significant pieces of legislation in the Scorecard analysis included:

Animal Welfare in Agricultural Research Endeavors Act: in an effort to ensure the humane and ethical treatment of animals at a national level, this act serves to amend the Animal Welfare Act to apply humane treatment standards for federal animal laboratory facilities.

Farm to School Act of 2015: an Act to increase funding for Farm to School programs and expand the scope of the program in order to include pre-schools. (House).

The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015 (also known as, the DARK Act): a bill that would allow for states to exempt themselves from the GMO labeling process, and would, in effect, keep consumers “in the dark” about what they are consuming. (House).

School Food Modernization Act: an effort to improve food programs at schools by providing technical assistance, grants for infrastructure, and more resources for schools to access healthful foods. (Senate).